Wow! Thank you to Glen at Wavecrest Shipping, Gravesend (www.wavecrest.co.uk) who are interested in helping ship books and uniforms to Mali, Cameroon and Thailand.

Also we need to chat to a couple of book companies who have expressed an interest in providing books to the Surin Schools: more details once we've had a chat.

Much appreciated!

A terrific fundraising effort from the teachers and kids at Caldecott and next week the Surin Charity is collecting a cheque for £1,500 from just one evening of fundraising, towards the school in Cameroon.

Many thanks to Sam Scott and as always Anita Trotter!

A big thank you to Helen Page at Abbey School in Faversham: they’ve created a fundraiser for their Mal school.

And, a storage cupboard has been set aside for old school uniforms, old clothes, sports kit, books and many more goodies that the kids in Mali will simply never have seen.

A cargo box shipper is wanted in a few months time to ship the clothes to West Africa: any volunteers from Dover Port or Ramsgate Port?

Thank you.

According to Save the Children and World Food Programme a set of 45p oral rehydration sachets would effectively prevent anyone dying from most of the diseases in Africa associated with dirty water.

Diseases that were cured in Europe in Victorian times.

Nealry 4,000 cholera deaths in Zimbabwe could have been prevented for about £3,000 worth of sachets. That would fit in a small packing case.

Ivan Lewis wrote to the newspapers last week detailing the costs associated with combatting AIDS - that the UK should rightly be proud of as one of the key donors.

DFID has 2 budgets each of of £1.2Bn

But is the issue not the cost: the costs seem tiny. Not the will: we are one of the lead agency donors.

But delivery to the front-line where it's needed?

Is it impossible to provide 3 sets of emergency sachets per person to all the hospitals in Africa?

45p a sachet. And a set of sachets little bigger than sugar sachets that sit next to your teacup.

o Around 30,000 children have died today from preventable diseases, dirty water and poor sanitation
o 1.1 billion lack access to clean water
o 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation
o In Africa, an estimated 5% of GDP is lost to illnesses and deaths caused by dirty water and the absence of sanitation
o Over 300 million people in Africa drink dirty water daily

30,000 preventable death seach day: for lack of £15,000 worth of oral hydration sachets each day.

Less than £5M per year.

A pretty amazing fundraising effort form Caldecott on Friday: £3,000 raised in one evening split between their Charitable Trust and Surn Charity.

Plus the kids qualify for their ASDAN accreditation.

Terrific effort and many, many thanks to the school and especially Anita at Kent Works.